


The Doranbolt Files

by IceDevice



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Doranbolt is basically out doing a bunch of terrifyingly cool shit with his powers, Gen, I am the Wasted Potential Police and this is What I Do, Most stories are not interconnected, Occasionally a fix fic, miracle cures are used for trauma that unfortunately do not exist in real life, psychological trauma is discussed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-13 08:21:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11180796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceDevice/pseuds/IceDevice
Summary: A drabble series about Doranbolt doing a bunch of cool shit with his powers.





	1. File #1: Visitation

A man in a white coat walked through the halls of the Aconitum, the largest penitentiary in Fiore. His face was impassive, but the scars on it were enough to make him fit right in with the prisoners who lunged towards their cell bars and gaped, gawking and yelling for his attention. He passed all of them by, instead being led by the guard ahead of him into an office just off the hallway leading to the warden's. Inside the office, everything was a sterile white just like his coat. There he took out a small pocket notebook and a pen from inside his coat and sat down at the one and only table, tapping the pen against it while he waited for the second of two chairs to be filled. A camera was at each corner of the small room, placed their some time ago in a desperate effort to know how the 'miracle man' as the prisoners had taken to calling him, worked his magic. A glass wall was to his right, where the penitentiary's warden and physician were already watching and waiting.

Within three minutes, the door opened again. In walked a prisoner, an enormous man with a '7' tattooed near his eye and a small bandage on his cheek. His prison jumpsuit was an orange color painfully vibrant against the walls. Despite his size and muscle mass easily outdoing that of the two prison guards acting as his escorts on either side of him, he looked very nervous. He waited, unsure of himself, before the warden barked "Sit!" from behind the glass. Once he had obeyed, the man in the white coat looked up, committing that thug-like face to memory.

"Do you know who I am?", he asked the prisoner.

He fidgeted. "Yeah." A pause while he waited before continuing. "Yer the Miracle Man."

"I mean, do you know why you and I are both here?"

"Yer s'posed to be this special doctor. You make us into good citizens and then we leave after probation and community service."

The man in white met the prisoner's black eyes with his own silver ones. Tension in the room sharpened until the man in white smiled, leading the prisoner to break into a relieved grin.

"That's pretty much it, and it's why you're here. I selected you myself, so consider yourself lucky. What's your name?"

"Justus." he answered, watching the man in white's eyebrow jump up. "J-U-S-T-U-S", he clarified. The man in white turned towards the notebook, writing it down.

"Last name?"

"Bauer."

"Alright, Justus Bauer. Can you tell me why you were imprisoned?"

"Drug charges." he answered. Again, the man in white looked up with an eyebrow raised. "And aggravated assault." he admitted.

Already, this man dressed like a Council member was writing things down in his notebook, much more information than he had already uncovered. The notes on the paper detailed such things as how the man had started out: a bodyguard at a seedy nightclub, quickly hired due to his large and intimidating frame. That, naturally, had gotten him involved in drugs. Once addicted and fairly well-versed in the trade, he became a dealer in his own right two years later, transporting meth and cocaine. The club eventually fired him after he knocked a customer unconscious in a drug-induced rage, leaving him jobless and vulnerable to gang activity, where he was inducted after a few weeks of jumping from drug party to drug orgy and dodging police. Justus rose to become a senior member of the gang over the next five years, engaging in brawls inbetween his drug trades and being set by his gang lords on snitches and rebellious teens. The man in white already knew that Justus had become as addicted to anger and violence as he was to drugs, until another year and a half later the shortie he'd been staying with called the police after enduring a brutal beatdown, resulting in the aggravated assault charge, in addition to the drug charge after finding coke in his drawers and on his bedsheets. Five years later, here he was, serving out the remainder of a 45-year sentence for an included intent to distribute factor added on to the first one. 

_Too easy_ , he thought.

"Alright, Justus, I'm going to ask you some questions, okay?"

"What kinda questions?"

"Therapy-type questions. I want you to make up a fantasy life for yourself. One where you have a new name, and different experiences. You're going to tell me what kind of job you'd have if you could, what you'd change about your personality, and other things like that, got it?"

The nervous look had returned to Justus' face, but he nodded.

Through just the next ten minutes, the two went back and forth as the man in white interrogated the prisoner, flicking through his notes all the while at a leisurely pace. He discovered that Justus liked the sound of names that started with 'D', that the last of his grandparents had died before he was five years old, that he'd had two girlfriends in high school that had both left him, that he'd liked music all his life and had hoped to become to club's DJ instead of its bouncer, that he was in anger management courses and disliked his own temper, and that he was still taking drugs smuggled through the prison system. All anyone could see from behind the glass, behind the cameras, or even right next to them, was two men talking. There was no outward hint that anything outside of a discussion was happening.

At the end of that ten minutes, the man in white stood up, which Justus took as an invitation to do so as well.

"Goodbye, Donovan. I'll talk to your attorney about the possession charges. Your case will be re-examined. "

"Thanks Mister Gryder. Can I go?"

"Yes, you're free to go. Kyle, Jim, if you could escort him?"

Kyle and Jim obediently escorted him back out and returned him to his cell. They stationed themselves on either side of his cell, hoping to hear something of substance in the chatter that would immediately ensue.

"Justus, how was it?"

"What did he say?"

"Did you get checked?"

"We just talked about my sentence and he's hoping they can get me a lighter one." Donovan answered. "He talked to my parents and they really think I have good chances with this next try. They're gonna say the marijuana wasn't mine, and he thinks I'll get off 'cuz no one can track down that girl I was fucking that night."

To the left of the cell, the guard named Kyle, a toothpick in his mouth and a blue cap on his head, jerked his head to the side. Donovan's voice sounded as genuine as could be, and having been watching this same prisoner for the last three years of his five-year stay, he knew that the man wasn't that smooth a liar. He glanced over to the other side of the barred door, towards his compatriot, who didn't seem to notice. "Hey." he asked, voice low.

"Mmn?"

"Izzat stuff he's sayin' true?"

The other guard raised his eyebrow, bemused. "You an' me were there. What ain't true?"

Kyle opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, then looked away with a swallow. "Nothin'. Nevermind."

A few minutes later, the man in white whose name seemed to be Gryder, walked by, smiling when he met Kyle's gaze.


	2. File #2: Stalker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doranbolt is contracted to put an end to a certain man's troubles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some notes: first and foremost, it's pretty obvious by now that I call Mest Gryder "Doranbolt". In anything Doranbolt-related that I write or even talk about, I disregard the post-Tartarus reveal about Doranbolt's name actually being Mest for real and him being a Fairy Tail member. In my preferred verse, that never happened and he's still a Council member. With regards to this fic specifically, everything about Tenrou, the GMG, and Tartarus still happened, but Doranbolt was not involved in the Alvarez War.

"She won't leave me alone."

These were the first words that hired investigator Doranbolt had heard from the mage, called Gray Fullbuster, regarding his 'woman problem'. He was currrently sitting across a table in a cheap restaurant's outside bar, across from his client. A pen was tapping against the table. Since then, the councilman had heard all of the details from a very frustrated Gray. Entering his mind, Doranbolt had located the image of the woman called Juvia Lockser, who had only today been seen buying a wedding veil. According to Fullbuster, in anyone else this would be harmless and cute, but in the hands of an obsessive stalker and crazed romantic, it was an ominous sign. In the twenty minutes since, Doranbolt had confirmed all of the stories Fullbuster had spun, entering his mind and examining his memories from the very beginning and checking them each time he felt disbelief. As he sifted around the interwoven, swaying branches of Fullbuster's memory tree, he picked out the parts where a head of blue hair was connected with a jolt of alarm or disgust. 

What he found was appalling: at first her actions were only infatuated and driven by an innocent crush, worrying in and of itself, but soon after came a memory Doranbolt identified that Fullbuster himself found foggy: attempted date rape via the popular love potion tract. While Fullbuster could barely remember it, Doranbolt saw the events with extreme clarity, watching the poor man be force-fed the love potion, only to be foiled by what Doranbolt could only assume was the alchemist she'd contacted intentionally giving her the wrong potion. Public displays of affection and invasions of personal space seemed downright commonplace, popping up in nearly every memory he examined. As with any obsessive stalker, the activity continued to escalate, made only worse once Lockser joined the same guild as Fullbuster, from then on being as close as she wanted to the object of her obsession daily with him being able to do nothing about it. 

Things had only gotten worse, with Lockser becoming increasingly, almost parodically, hostile to other women who interacted with Fullbuster, even over innocent chat. Then came the man's public embarrassment live on national television at the Grand Magic Games when the woman proclaimed a spell based on her love for Fullbuster to the entire world (Doranbolt himself remembered this, having seen it before). Worst of all was the strange series of events at the Dragon King Festival, at which Doranbolt himself had been present, albeit in another area handling unrelated matters concerning dragonslayers. The memory he found interesting here held absurd contents: in the middle of assault by Motherglare's hatchlings, Lockser had been overcome by yet another fantasy brought on by Fullbuster's presence, only to have to be pushed out of the way when it led to her being unaware of several blasts aimed at her. Doranbolt promptly felt the pain of a blast through the chest, then the stomach, then the shoulder, and finally seen a white light before blackness came, only for the memory to reset a second later, repeating the same events with a haze of foreknowledge, enough for Fullbuster to dodge the blasts. The woman quite literally caused Fullbuster's death with her lack of focus and obsession, which would sound hilarious if Doranbolt didn't still feel phantom pain in his own chest for the lasers he'd taken for Lockser.

The events continued to escalate, with Fullbuster being harassed on the anniversary of his mentor's death by Lockser again, beseeched to accept a hand-knitted scarf. _Why would you knit a scarf for an ice wizard_ , he wondered quietly, only to watch her present the man with a body pillow the next day. Then came the year after his guild's breakup, when Fullbuster attempted and failed to keep Lockser out of his home, being set upon and, chillingly, waking up not alone in his bed several times. If anything, events continued to get worse, Doranbolt and Fullbuster both noticing that Juvia had adopted a stripping 'habit' and practiced Molder Magic spells for the sake of being more like her crush.

There was one thing that Doranbolt found more disturbing than anything else, and it was not the woman herself. It was how long everyone around Fullbuster had simply allowed, even encouraged, Lockser's behavior. Many memories were accompanied by an internal plea to Fullbuster's surroundings, wishing desperately that someone would take his side when he told her off or wished to be left alone. Only barely had the ice mage held back utter rage when told to be more considerate of Lockser's feelings by one Lyon Vastia at the ball after the Dragon King Festival. Nobody seemed to want to give Fullbuster the slightest support with what was very clearly a persisting and dangerous problem. Doranbolt had always felt that Fairy Tail had its flaws, but was not as rotten as the Council wanted to portray them. Now though, he felt a righteous anger inside him quickly souring any defenses of those wizards he'd held. _Some friends those are_ , he thought.

"Can you get rid of her?"

Doranbolt looked up, emerging from memory tree without any noticeable change in expression. "Certainly, I can. But...."

"But what?"

Doranbolt gazed across the table, seeing a fervent hope in Fullbuster's eyes. "Well....the solution to the problem may or may not last."

"What does that mean?" the ice mage asked.

Doranbolt chewed the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. "I can easily wipe you and everything about you from her memories. What happens afterward depends on the source of her behaviors. I can effectively cure behavioral patterns in an instant by wiping out and replacing the memories that caused them, but if the patterns were present from the start, if there was something wrong with her from the beginning......"

Fullbuster's eyes widened, and Doranbolt was pleased to see understanding in them. If it was the latter, then there was no guarantee Juvia Lockser wouldn't immediately latch onto him again the moment she saw him, or repeat the process with some other poor soul of a man. Doranbolt let out a breath, and picked up again:

"I could simply arrest her and have her imprisoned, if you'd prefer that." Already he knew the answer. Of course Fullbuster couldn't do that, for the same reasons he'd avoided using physical or magical violence to repel Lockser for this long. In addition to the likelihood of violence being brushed off as more of a Fairy Tail guild member's penchant for sparring and fighting for fun, if he did manage to seriously hurt her, there was the possibility that he would be thrown out of his guild and lose his job. Deliberately causing the arrest of a fellow guildmate would undoubtedly cause similar ostracism and scorn.

Fullbuster shook his head. "That would just cause more problems. One more thing...."

"Yes?"

"Could you wipe my memories, too?"

Doranbolt tapped his fingers against the table, discerning why he would ask such a question. "I could. I could erase the memories of the incidents she put you through, or I could erase her from your memory entirely. In the latter case, I'd need to do you guild, too. But if you're feeling guilty about having her memory wiped, I'll tell you that it isn't necessary. You're the victim here, and you're pursuing a humane way to put a real stop to your aggressor. I'll still do it if you want me to, but keep that in mind."

Fullbuster nodded, a relieved look coming over him. "In that case, go with erasing everything she's done from everyone else. Leave my memories alone."

"Will do. I'll talk to you later today after I've rewired her memories."

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Tracking her had taken about two minutes, between his wide-range memory scan and his teleportation abilities. To the outside world, Doranbolt was sitting on the step outside her apartment in one of the halls of Fairy Hills, staring in concentration while Lockser stood with the door open, expression blank. 

In every person and many animals, their memories appear to one who can see them as a tree. This tree is called the arboretum, and the branches spreading out from the central shaft were individual memories. The more powerful and less easily-forgotten a memory was, the larger the branch. The process of altering, erasing, and replacing memories that Doranbolt's magic used involved entering that arboretum and cutting those branches, then crafting new ones and grafting them on in a process that took, within the mindscape, anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes depending on the length of the job, and was condensed even further in reality. Right now, Doranbolt had his work cut out for him, sifting through the locale. So much of this woman's thoughts revolved around Gray that it pervaded her mind like a fog, many of the longer, yet thinner branches involving him in some way. Clearing out that fog and replacing each individual memory took longer than expected, and in the process Doranbolt found himself even more appalled than when he had first examined Fullbuster's memories. 

He saw every deranged thought and action, from the stalking in the very beginning that Fullbuster seemed not to have noticed to the near-homicidal change in temperament when he was threatened. He saw how her every thought revolved around Gray in some way, saw how she forfeited her career as an S-Class wizard because she was not on Gray's team, saw how she genuinely considered abandoning or harming her own guildmates to better her chances of being on his team in later events. Most disturbingly, he saw her crafting each and every piece of Gray Fullbuster memorabilia, and kept a great distance away from the memories involving the Gray Fullbuster bath sponge. He dwelled for quite some time on the memory of the rain of depression that had hung over her when Gray had left without telling her where he was going, causing her to flood a town, leaving when the rush of caustic, sluggish sadness began to make moving through the arboretum difficult. Cutting and replacing every single memory and rewriting nearly every thought she'd had in the past three years was a much more laborious job than expected. But, after a few minutes, it was done.

Every single memory she'd had of not only harassing Gray Fullbuster, but of ever being in 'love' with Gray Fullbuster, was gone. Once that was done, Doranbolt simply retreated to the end of her arboretum, and implanted a memory of her inviting him over for tea, so as to be invited in. The blank expression on her face subsided.

"Oh, yes, come in."

No sooner was he in the house with the door closed than he muttered a spell to knock Lockser unconscious. She slumped against her apartment door, thankfully not hitting it too hard. Doranbolt immediately set about the house, visiting every room and teleporting every piece of Gray Fullbuster memorabilia he could find, cringing when he entered the bedroom. All of it was placed into several large piles in her living room, and once he was thoroughly sure he'd gotten everything, he went there himself, murmuring another spell to light the fireplace. Each and every carefully hand-crafted item and every piece of merchandise was thrown in, one after another, with Doranbolt only stopping when the flame and smoke threatened to overflow onto the carpet. Eventually, the last bit of it--that fucking Gray loofah--was reduced to ash as well. The results were an apartment that looked incredibly bare; there weren't even sheets or pillowcases in the bedroom. Walking back to Lockser's foyer, Doranbolt erased the memory of inviting him over for tea, and replaced it with a memory of clearing out her apartment and deciding to redecorate.

Now, he simply needed to make sure all of the Fairy Tail guild's hundred plus members thought so too. It should be easy enough; now that he'd already been through Fullbuster's experiences within the guild, wiping out any trace of Juvia's affections from the minds of the rest of them should be especially simple. 

"Have a good day, Miss Lockser." he said, teleporting out of the apartment complex.


	3. File #3: Intervention

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doranbolt rescues children from dangerous households. **Content Warning for: child abuse, implied and mentioned pedophilia/child predation.**

' _Dad, when's dinner?_ ' She had asked.

Bernadette straightened up, rubbing her face with cold water before looking in the mirror. Her eye hadn't swollen or turned blue yet, but the telltale signs were arriving already. It didn't really bother her. Well, it hurt a lot, but she should've known better to approach her dad like that when he was clearly drunk and in a bad mood already. What hurt more were the sounds she was attempting to block out now, of her father yelling and raging at her mother for not having dinner ready, punctuated with a pause between several words and a yelp each time. That had been her fault, for giving him the ammunition to turn on her mother with. 

The fourteen-year-old girl stayed in the bathroom for a half hour, and would've stayed longer, but at that point her father's voice rang through the house.

" _Dylan! Bernadette! Geddown here, yer Uncle Judd's here!_ "

Bernadette felt a sense of dread. She hated Uncle Judd. 

Reluctantly, she exited the bathroom, trying to make it look as though she'd just been in there a few minutes. At the same time, she saw her seven-year-old brother Dylan coming down the stairs, a similar look of apprehension on his face to the one that must be on hers. She looked off to the left, and saw Uncle Judd, his dirty brown coat being hung up on the doorknob, coming into the foyer. "Dylan, go and get the beer cooler from the pantry." she said hurriedly. Another wave of dread passed through her when she heard Uncle Judd call her.

"Ey, Fern. Come give yer uncle a hug."

Feeling her disgust increase with each step, she walked down into the foyer and, masking how much she wanted to get away, put her arms around Uncle Judd. He smelled the way he usually did, an amalgam of stenches that Bernadette could identify as cigarettes, beer, cocaine, more beer, and possibly crystal meth. If she knew anything about him, he'd probably just come back from one of his 'parties', or from hanging around the school yard trying to sell kids drugs. None of that was what made her so uncomfortable around Uncle Judd, though.

As quickly as she could without looking suspicious, she let go and made for the kitchen, where she saw her mother preparing dinner. On the one hand, eating would spare her the trouble of being expected to talk, and if she ate fast she could go up to her room and shut herself up before the adults finished, so that was good. On the other, it also meant she would be stuck at the dinner table with them for at least five minutes.

Dylan had already taken the long route to get the beer cooler into the living room, successfully bypassing having to talk to the adults, and was now retreating to the bathroom. Dad and Uncle Judd settled themselves comfortably onto a recliner and the couch in the living room, each one cracking open a can with a hiss, and began watching their preferred sports shows. Bernadette hovered in the background, observing them and watching for any signs that Dad was going to go barking orders at her or Mom. 

"Them cheerleaders' skirts get shorter an' shorter every year, Judd."

"That they fuckin' do lil' bro."

Bernadette tried to pretend she couldn't feel the glance that was shot her way. All too soon, the call for dinner came.

"It's ready!  
___________________________________________________________

Spaghetti. A great family meal, supposedly. Bernadette piled parmesan high on her plate and did the same for Dylan, encouraging him 'not to play with his food and eat it'. Her mother was quiet, and only seemed mildly interested in her food, not looking anywhere but at her plate. Her father and Uncle Judd were the only ones that seemed interested in talking. 

"You been outta probation long?"

"Nah. Lil' brat bitch from the block down pestered the court."

That 'little brat bitch' was Julia, Bernadette's best friend and classmate. Bernadette hadn't been in contact with her since the start of eighth grade, when some sort of altercation had happened between her and Uncle Judd. Uncle Judd maintained that he had only slapped the girl, but Bernadette had heard other stories. Most of them from her classmates who alleged that Uncle Judd had tried to paint Julia as an underage seductress in court. Whatever the case, Julia had become very anxious and had severed contacts with many of her friends. Given that she was Uncle Judd's niece, Bernadette didn't blame her for not wanting to be around her after whatever it was that had happened. It still hurt, though. 

From across the table, Bernadette thought she'd heard her mother mumble something. Whatever she'd said, Dad seemed to have heard her perfectly, because before anyone could react, a loud _THACK_ had resounded around the room as the back of his fist met her nose. With a yelp, Bernadette's mother was sent crashing out of her toppled chair.

"Mom!" she yelled.

"Leave 'er the fuck alone, girl." her dad snarled, but he ignored her. Bernadette rounded the table and took her mother's arm, attempting to help her up, but she was shoved away. Her mother mumbled something incoherent again, her frizzled hair covering her face, and rebuffing Bernadette's second attempt to help her up. 

"You wanna get smacked too, bitch? _SIDDOWN_!"

Bernadette went back to her seat.

Dylan was staring in silence, until Dad roared at him to eat his damn food. From there on, Bernadette and he ate in silence, as fast as they could. She could feel eyes on her, but they were not her father's eyes--those were trained on her mother. It was Uncle Judd's eyes that silently watched her every move, and followed her when she put her plate in soak and went up the stairs to her room with Dylan in tow by the arm. 

She didn't care what happened to herself, but she was not going to let her little brother be hurt. 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She and Dylan watched television in his room for a while, until eight o'clock came, when it was time for Dylan to go to bed. Bernadette let him have the bed, seeing as it was his anyway--their guest would no doubt be taking her room downstairs. Though she tried to sleep, she couldn't, and not because it was on a futon on the floor. There was no clock in Dylan's room, since he couldn't tell time, so she couldn't tell how long it had been since it had gotten dark. It could've been a half hour, or three hours. Long after noise in the house had gone silent, she had leaned up from her futon, thinking it was perhaps safe to sneak down to the kitchen and grab snacks and water bottles from the fridge, or a kitchen knife from the drawer, or both. She froze, however, when she heard the knob to their door being turned. It was locked, and a few unsuccessful tries at opening it later the movement ceased. Was it Dad? Or Mom? Or....? She strained to hear, but at best, thought she might could be picking up the sounds of someone's shuffling feet, unable to discern whether they were leaving or not. She wished she could get away from this house.

She laid like that, fearful and heart pumping, until sleep finally took her at an unknown hour.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bernadette opened her eyes. It was dark, but not the pitch blackness of the late night hour. She was cold, and she felt wind blowing. She jolted up, looking around frantically.

She was outside. Not only herself, but her cot and blankets were outside. As if someone had managed to float her out of the locked room and out the back door without waking her up. She looked to her right. Not only was she out in the back yard that Dylan's room overlooked, but Dylan himself was here too, fast asleep in a bed that also seemed not to have moved at all, with the exception that it was now outside. What had happened? Was she dreaming?

A faint sound, like the rustle of a branch, came from her left, and Bernadette jerked her head in that direction, feeling her bones chill to ice. She was sure there hadn't been a man standing there before. It clicked in her head: a _wizard_.

Despite the darkness of the night with almost no moonlight, the man stood out against the inky blackness by way of his bright white coat. It looked fancy, like something someone from a jury or a council would wear. She couldn't make out his face, until he stepped closer. His expression was impassive in the shadow, but seemed.....concerned, once she got a good look at it. It was still a frightening face, since Bernadette could see several scars running across it.

"Bernadette?" came a low voice.

"Wh-wh....Wh-Who are you?" she asked, scrambling away and backing herself to the rim of Dylan's bed, placing herself between him and the wizard.

"Try to be quiet. I'm not here to hurt you."

There was silence from both him and her as she scrutinized him. As if she'd believe that.

"I'm here to take you away from this house."

And just like that, despite herself and her instinct to distrust this strange man, she felt elated. This must be a dream. She must be hallucinating or sleepwalking. How often had she dreamed of a social worker or someone from the custody offices coming to take her away from here? Nearly in the same instant, it deflated back into mistrust again. That was too good to be true, so obviously it wasn't true.

"I asked you who you are!" she said, trying to keep her voice down, but shrill nonetheless.

"My name is Doranbolt. I know you're scared, but I'm here to help you. I'm going to take you away from this house, and install you with another family, one who doesn't have children. Do you understand?"

Dylan stirred behind her, but he did not wake. Bernadette was sweating, despite the cold. Could she really trust someone like this?

"How can you just....pop up like this? You haven't even talked to our parents. You can't take us away in the middle of the night."

Doranbolt remained calm, looking unconcerned. "I'm a member of the Magic Council. My specialties are memory scanning and alterations. I've already altered the memories of a nice couple, Mister and Mrs. Lates, who are going to be your new parents."

"I didn't hear from no Magic Council."

"That's because I'm not really supposed to be doing this." Doranbolt admitted. "Not without prior approval and proper investigations first. But the Magic Council has a flexible rule about reasonable actions, when the charges are endangered, and well, you were endangered."

"You can't prove that."

"That bruise over your left eye says otherwise."

Damn. Damn, damn, _damn it_! There was really no arguing with that, was there? What were the odds he'd believe her if she told him she'd fallen down a flight of stairs? Or bumped into a cabinet?

"Tomorrow morning, your father will be arrested on assault charges for damages to your mother." Doranbolt said coolly.

Bernadette hesitated. "And my uncle?"

"He will also be arrested." Doranbolt, quite pointedly, did not make any attempt to give an explanation for the latter. She didn't care, so long as he was put away. But still....

"What about Mom?" she asked.

Doranbolt smoothed the folds of his coat. "She will not remember you exist, nor will anyone in the house except your little brother.

That....troubled her. Sure, their Mom hadn't been the best at shielding them from their Dad's abuse or preventing Uncle Judd from getting closer to her than was comfortable, but....she'd never hit them, or starved them, or pushed them into furniture....

"But....Mom didn't do anything....?"

Bernadette had thought this man frightening before. But what he'd been like before was nothing like what he was now. Something about his gaze, previously friendly and kind, had turned icy.

"That is exactly why you are being taken away from her. She has done nothing, nothing at all to protect you, and you have had to be the mother that raises your sibling. She is unfit."

That change in tone made her wary. It wasn't as though he was wrong. Perhaps neglect just really bothered him? Bernadette felt ashamed that she wanted to leave her mother. And at the same time, she felt like she was realizing something. Perhaps Mom doing nothing didn't make her quite the good parent. Relatively good, maybe, but....

"How do I know I can trust you?" She challenged one final time. "You show up here in the middle of the night, say you're a memory-wiper, say you're taking us away from our parents--say you're from some magic council! You're nuts! No way am I going with you! Prove yourself!"

There was no answer from Doranbolt for quite a long few seconds. Then, slowly, he reached into his coat. Bernadette felt the fear in her rise again, wondering what he was reaching in there for. Was that a glint of something? Metal? Her fear skyrocketed, almost sure she had to be dreaming as this man with the scars across his face pulled out a very, very big knife from the depths of his coat.

And tossed it to the ground next to her.

She flinched when the blade came her way, only to stare curiously, then apprehensively, first at the knife and then at the man. Just what was he playing at here?

"What's that? What are you doing?"

"I'm aware you must be very scared. But I really am only here to put you into a better home. If you're worried I'm lying, or that you can't trust me, or that I'll hurt you or your little brother, just take that knife and point it at me."

Bernadette could not believe her ears. The past five minutes had all been so surreal. Every inch of her consciousness held her back, screaming that her instincts--that this man was to be trusted--were wrong, and that she should scream for help instead of picking up a knife. He still made no move to hurt her. She made the decision as fast as lightning. Springing into action, she bolted from her cot over to the grass where the knife laid, grabbing it and straightening up, pointing it at him. Her blood rushed in her ears, her own heartbeat reverberating through her body. And still he made no move to stop her.

"Do you feel safer, now?"

"What's the big idea, giving young girls knives?" She said, boldly challenging him. "I'm the one with the power, now."

"So will you answer a couple of questions for me?"

"No!" she said, trying to smile, but her mouth wasn't working right. "Maybe I'm the one asking questions now."

"Go on."

She stopped short. All of her attempts at provoking or unraveling this man had gone brushed off. He was incredibly patient when it came to someone resisting what should've been something she'd want to go along with. Even pointing his own knife straight at him didn't seem to bother him. Was he just that easy-going, or was there something else going on here?

"Why did you bother waking me up? Or teleporting us out here to the backyard? Why didn't you just mind-wipe us and be done with it?" she asked.

It was an earnest question. It made no sense to her, really. If she were him, she'd have just blanked the two kids in question and spirited them away. Waking up in a different household and feeling absolutely at home there, with a nice mom and dad waking her up with breakfast, would've been preferable to being woken up in the middle of the night by Creeps McGee here. She observed his face, taking another step closer to try to discern any lies his face might betray.

"Because it's important to ask you how you feel about this." he said. "I'm taking you away from this household no matter what, because I cannot and will not allow you to stay in a household where you're being preyed on. But while I can't expect a seven-year-old to make decisions about where he lives with and whom, you're old enough to have a say in that matter. I want you to be awake to meet Mr. and Mrs. Lates, while retaining your memories, to judge whether you think they'll take good care of you and your little brother or not. A child being shunted around from house to house is never easy on them. I could make it easier, with my memory replacement ability, but I try not to make too many adjustments to the people around me without their consent. Part of my job is being trusted not to overuse my power just because it's convenient."

Bernadette's mouth dropped open. It took her a minute to process everything he'd said, and her brain rebelled against her too-easily-swayed heart. _Liar_.

"You're a liar!" she seethed. "You're full of shit!

Doranbolt simply stared, impassive.

"I mean it!" she said, gripping the knife with both hands and holding the hilt against her stomach, as though to skewer him. "Get lost, or I'll run you through!"

"I'm not leaving. If you really want to stab me, fine. If it will get you into a better home, a wound isn't so bad." he said. "I wish you wouldn't, though. I know you're scared, and don't want to trust me. But no one else is going to come help you. Your father doesn't have a criminal record, your mother has covered for him in the past when child services have come to call, and any investigations they'd make are useless if you're too afraid of them to speak up about what you're being put through. You're not going to get another opportunity.

Bernadette's eyes widened. How could he know all of that? _He's rooting around in your head, your memories,_ her fear told her. 

She ran forward, cold hands gripping the knife handle hard. She was going to stab him--well, not _really._ She'd stop just short. She'd scare him, was all. And then he'd leave her and Dylan alone. She could handle her home life herself. She'd endured it this long enough, and so long as nothing happened to Dylan, well....who cared if she had to be the mother of the household?

She ran forward, breathing heavily. There was only a distance of ten feet between them, crossed in a second and a half. Bernadette lunged.

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...

...............

....................................

He hadn't moved. Bernadette and her bluff had been exposed. The tip of the blade rested just against his coat, having not even gotten close enough to pierce skin. 

"Why....why didn't you move?" she asked, her mouth agape. 

"Well, I'm glad you didn't actually stab me. First, I didn't move because I'm trying to prove that you can trust me. Tell me, if you'd actually put that knife through my chest just now, would you have felt okay with that? I doubt it. Second, I didn't move because even if you had stabbed me, I probably would've been okay. I'm a competent wizard, and I've been hurt far worse. But have I proven to you that I'm trustworthy yet?"

Bernadette felt tears threaten her eyes. Not only had she been made a fool of, but she'd nearly stabbed someone who really was only here to help. "I....."

"I'm sorry. I'll answer your questions now."

"Good." Doranbolt reached for the knife, and Bernadette let him take it, feeling that it was wiser than letting her keep it. "My first question is what you'd have me do with your school peers. I could simply wipe their memories of your existence from their minds, as well as the school staff. Or I could just make them think that you moved away. Alternatively, you could still go to school in this district, if....that's something you'd want to do."

Bernadette backed away. She hadn't even considered her school friends. This was it then, she really could vanish from this house? And find another? "If at all possible, I wanna stay in school here."

"Good. That's less work for me and less goodbye for you. Second question: Do you want to go right now? There's a temporary household waiting for you where the story is that you've been removed from a parent's custody. If you want to stay until morning, and not cross the city in pajamas, that's fine. If it would help you feel safer, that's good too. My plan is to introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Lates the day after tomorrow, with them under the impression they're taking in those kids, and if you decide you like them, I'll leave you with them for a week, and then come back to check up on you again. If you're at ease there, I'll replace everyone's memories so that that will be the house you grew up in. If you decide to stay here until morning, I can wait until 8 A.M."

Bernadette looked back at her brother, somehow still asleep throughout the conversation they'd been having, managing to snooze through her stabbing feint. At least, she hoped he was really asleep. It would be awkward explaining if it turned out he'd just been pretending to be asleep.

"Can you put us back in our room and give us five minutes to get dressed? I wanna go now, if that's okay."

"Of course."

Doranbolt raised his hand and pointed two fingers in her direction. Without even being given time to register what was happening, the scene around her changed. It was abrupt in how quick it happened, as there had been no indicator she was being teleported. One second she was in her back yard, and another second, she was staring at the window down to that backyard. She looked underneath her. The cot was still there, along with its messed-up spread, and underneath it, the carpet of Dylan's bedroom. She looked behind her, and found the very same Dylan in the same Dylan's bed. 

"Dylan! Dylan!" he hissed, reaching over and shook him by the arm. Dylan did not respond for a few seconds, then groggily shifted and turned closer to the wall, but his eyes remained closed. If he was pretending to be asleep, he was very good at it for a seven-year-old. "Dylan!" she repeated, shaking him harder. Dylan's eyes opened.

"Bernadette? It's still dark."

"I know, get up."

"Huh? Whass wrong?"

"Nothing, now just get up, and hurry. Go to your drawers and get some clothes on."

Dylan took some time getting out of bed, and Bernadette had to pull at him to get him moving properly. She accompanied him to his drawers, realizing too late that her clothes weren't here, but in her own closet in her room downstairs. Should she go get them? The thought of leaving this room and going into the hall, remembering the door being jiggled earlier, repulsed her. Even if it turned out he was asleep, she did not want to go down there. While Dylan picked out his clothes and put them on, Bernadette returned to the window, looking out it to find Doranbolt still in the backyard, waiting. Trying to be quiet, she slid the window up and spoke.

"Mister Doranbolt!" she said, watching him glance upward.

"Are you ready to leave?"

"Not yet! There's a closet full of my clothes in the downstairs bedroom at the end of the hall. Can you teleport them here?"

Doranbolt nodded, turning his attention to the wall beneath her, as if looking through it to where her bedroom was, and extended a pointing finger in her direction again. Bernadette withdrew her head from the window when she heard the sound of fabric hitting the floor, along with a quiet clang of metal, and found several hangers full of jeans and shirts on the carpet, all hers.

"Look away, Dylan." she said, making sure he had his back turned and his eyes covered before selecting a few and pulling them on. How many times had she dreamed of doing exactly this? Of taking her brother in the middle of the night and just leaving? So many nights had she laid awake in bed turning that scenario over in her mind, wondering if it was possible to avoid police and wanted posters and search teams, simultaneously wondering if those would even be present and feeling miserable at the possibility. But it was really happening now. Someone had been sent to help them, and they were going to leave--not to be street urchins, but to go to a new home with loving parents. Maybe God was real.

Once she was done, she returned to the window, and spoke to Doranbolt.

"We're ready!"

"Take your brother's arm."

Bernadette obeyed, and got a hold of Dylan's left arm with a firm grip. Suddenly, they were outside again. Dylan gasped, and began looking around, stunned at the instantaneous travel. Doranbolt extended his own arm. Bernadette hesitated, confused. "Why are we taking each other's arms again?"

"Just safer. Teleporting accidents can happen over long distances."

Well, she wouldn't want to accidentally be teleported into the middle of a road with a car coming, or be separated from her brother by a few miles. She gripped Doranbolt's arm.

"Off we go."

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Doranbolt appeared in the darkened living room of the house. Bernadette and Dylan were safe in the temporary house, many miles away from here. 

Doranbolt had lied. Well, not really, but he had told one lie. The man called Judd would not be getting arrested or sent to prison tomorrow. By tomorrow, he would no longer be Judd, or even a person, much less a man. Reaching out with his mind, Doranbolt located and latched on to the three other minds sleeping soundly in the house. Within two of the three, he entrenched himself and located every memory they had that so much as made mention of the third. He cut and slashed and amputated each memory remotely connected to him, until he had completely erased anything to do with the one called Judd. It had taken a minute or two, going through both minds and sifting through the time they'd lived in the house, their married years, their high school years, and the father's childhood. Examining said father's parents in his memories, Doranbolt made sure to make a note to himself to track down those parents and wipe their memories of their firstborn child, too. By the time he was done, Judd was a stranger in this couple's home. 

After that was done, Doranbolt teleported himself a few rooms away, appearing in a darkened bedroom at the end of the hall with no windows and a closet on the east wall. A man was sleeping here, snoring soundly on a twin bed too small for him. Doranbolt latched onto his mind again, taking hold.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What did you do to him?"

"I erased his memories."

They were currently deep in a thickly wooded forest on the edge of the city, the night still very dark and the floor littered with pine needles. To Doranbolt's right was Cobra, a man capable of reading thoughts that had been useful in alerting him to the nature of what had been going on in the household. Cobra's eyes were furrowed, staring suspiciously at something a few feet away from them, while Doranbolt stared mildly at the same thing. That 'thing' was a man, sitting on the forest floor. He was in a stained undershirt and gray boxers, but standing out underneath them was skin that was a pale white. A shock of white hair sat on his scalp, messy and blowing slightly in the wind. The man's expression was blank, and he stared forward into the dark woods without saying anything. His eyes and mouth remained motionless, as did the rest of him. His color could have made him a ghost, and his stillness could've made him a statue. 

"Which memories?" Cobra asked, eyes narrowing. "I can't hear any thoughts from him."

"All of them." Doranbolt said coldly. A couple minutes prior, he had cleaned out the entirety of the man's arboretum, snipping every single branch, no matter how small, before going for the tree itself and chopping it away bit by bit. "I removed every single memory in his mind. From what happened tonight all the way to the beginning of his life. Every single thought, experience, and learned behavior is gone. He cannot remember how to eat, sleep, talk, or defend himself. I also placed a short-term memory loss filter over his mind, which activates about every thirty seconds or so. He will be dead in five days, less if an animal gets to him."

Cobra turned to stare at him, eyes wide and mouth slightly ajar. No doubt he had figured Doranbolt for some kind of 'thou shalt not kill' pacifist. No, he was a very different kind of pacifist. No need to waste a prison cell on the kind of predator that could not be rehabilitated by jailtime or by memory replacement. 

Doranbolt turned on his heel, coat swishing behind him. "Let's go, Cobra."


	4. File #4: Intoxication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A different version of the Dragon King Festival at the GMG, courtesy of Doranbolt. This idea comes from a conversation I had with my friend, Mandy, who loves Cobra almost as much as I do.
> 
> Apologies for how long this took. I was writing another chapter very soon after the third one, but some emotional real life stuff caught up, not to mention a dozen Bleach meta posts. I do still have at least two more chapters planned after this.

_The city was ablaze and in ruins as seven dragons rampaged across the metropolitan area of Fiore's capital city. Crocus was split in half as a dragon with a dark hide roared, a beam of white-hot magic energy carving through everything in its way._

On top of the cliff overlooking the west half of the city, Doranbolt stood with his brow furrowed. Below him, the dragonslayer called Cobra was struggling to fend off a dragon made of stone. The fight was going poorly; it wasn't that Cobra couldn't damage the dragon, it was just that the dragon's durability was outpacing Cobra's stamina and magic energy. The issue wasn't helped by Cobra's powers being handicapped, having only just minutes ago been let out of a magic-sealing prison cell. Most wizards that earned their freedom were rusty to say the least, and Cobra's internal power hadn't been given a chance to rejuvenate itself. If this fight continued, Cobra was going to die--which was a problem. On top of the stakes being high enough in this fight already, Doranbolt didn't want that on his conscience. The deal had been that if Cobra could slay a dragon, his freedom would be earned, a deal that Doranbolt intended to follow to the letter--if it should turn out that Cobra merely defeated the dragon without killing it, then as per the agreement, he would go back to prison, which Doranbolt was counting on, as Cobra was one of the Oracion Seis, a dark guild with astounding numbers of crimes to their names. A deal with petty criminals was already frowned upon, but taking one out of the cell only to send him to his death was an execution. That didn't line up with Doranbolt's morals.

He winced as he watched the rock dragon land a particularly brutal blow, sending Cobra crashing through four buildings. The battle continued, and the rock dragon bore down on the poison slayer again. Cobra needed help, not that Doranbolt was enthusiastic about giving it. Doranbolt looked around. There were other slayers among the ruins of the city. Laxus Dreyar, the lightning dragon slayer, was fighting the Jade Dragon while being supported by healing from Wendy. The Twin Dragons were dueling the beasts called Levia and Scissor Runner with poor results, and the dark-hided dragon was swatting aside someone who looked like Gajeel Redfox. That left only one slayer and two dragons--Natsu Dragneel, atop a massive beast of flame in the sky, locked in combat with Future Rogue, who rode Motherglare. It was a fierce fight; Future Rogue had far more power than Natsu, but Natsu was eating flames from the fire dragon to keep even with him. Other slayers were not so lucky. Gajeel seemed to have lasted this long thanks to his monstrous endurance and chowing down on whatever metal in the vicinity he could find, while Laxus had Wendy to continue buffing and healing him. Doranbolt was not worried for Sting and Rogue. Even if their combined might was not enough to down a dragon, the two could escape with Rogue's shadow sink abilities. Was there anyone nearby who could aid Cobra? Thinking back, Doranbolt remembered Chelia, the godslayer with healing powers. He scanned the city and opened up his mind looking for her, but before he could locate her memory tree, he heard a cry from down below.

Doranbolt jerked his head down and met with a grisly sight. The rock dragon had its front arm extended out and was attempting to crush a resisting Cobra beneath it. Cobra, strong though he was, was about to be smashed into a bony, bloody pulp. There was no more time for trying to plan out a strategy, Doranbolt had to intervene right _now_.

In the most dangerous move he'd ever made, he teleported down beneath the stone fist, and got an arm around Cobra's midsection. He heard a loud _crack_ following by a sick _crunch_ , before he managed to teleport them both away. The pressure on top of them both disappeared and revealed the both of them to still be alive, back on the cliff face. Cobra's arms fell down into position, one slung over Doranbolt's shoulders and another slumped at his side. Looking over, Doranbolt found the source of the noise: Cobra's arm had been snapped and splintered, an ugly mess of white bone shard and red gore showing through the skin of his forearm. No sooner had he looked at it than Cobra spat his grievances.

"Get off me, I didn't need your help."

"That's not a fight you can win, Cobra."

"Shut up! Let me back down there so I can kick that thing's ass!"

Doranbolt hadn't taken Cobra for someone this stubborn, nor someone that would be this determined to face a foe he couldn't beat. Not that he'd know, but he'd taken him for someone more level-headed. He supposed Cobra's insistence on fighting the rock dragon had to do with the gamble for freedom, so he didn't fault him. Right now, Cobra needed medical attention, but Doranbolt hesitated to leave himself open while reaching out with his mind. A loud _crash_ shook the area around them, and Doranbolt felt the overwhelming presence of the rock dragon not only in the vibrations around them, but in the vastness of its mind. It was furious its opponent had escaped and was looking for them. They were running out of time.

Doranbolt saw a glint of something in the distance, near the Eclipse Gate. Doranbolt squinted, trying to observe what was happening, and expanded his memory sense in that direction. Princess Hisui and her guards, and Lucy, and Yukino....

 _That was it._ A desperate idea came to Doranbolt, one he hoped would turn out to be a brilliant one. Making sure he had a secure hold on Cobra, Doranbolt teleported himself across the city, towards the heart of Crocus.

The scenery changed again, and Doranbolt found himself in front of the monstrous Eclipse Gate. Not unlike the feeling of the weight of the rock dragon bearing down on top of him from a second ago, an ominous fear, like impending disaster, washed over the councilman as he felt the gate's black magic aura. Even as he took it in, the foreboding feeling was replaced with another wave of magic, coming from two wizards. Lucy Heartfilia and Yukino Agria, their arms extended, sat beneath twelve golden gate keys, from which burst forth twelve spirits. The Zodiac launched themselves at the gate, and Doranbolt felt their outpouring of magic energy as they tried their damnedest to make some dent in the immense door. The outpouring of energy was so strong, he wasn't sure why it hadn't attracted the attention of one of the dragons that had come through that same gate yet. Surely one of them was noticing the attempts at destroying the portal? 

"Huh?"

The two girls had noticed him and the spirits, exhausted, faded away. The princess was peering at him as well, and the guard, Arcadios, had his sword drawn and pointed. A jerk of movement came from his right and he felt Cobra tense. Looking at him, Doranbolt found him gawking at Yukino, mouth slightly ajar. He couldn't guess why and it wasn't important right now. 

"I'm sorry to interrupt," he said gruffly, "but I need your help. Yukino, could you pass your keys to the Princess and assist us for a moment? I may have found a way to defeat one of the dragons."

Yukino seemed surprised, as did Cobra, whose ear poked Doranbolt in the cheek as he turned to gawk at him in turn. "Princess Hisui." she said, extending a hand holding the two golden keys. It seemed there was an understanding and she did not need to communicate to her spirits to follow another wizard's commands. Hisui took the keys, and replaced Yukino next to Lucy's side as Yukino strode over. Yukino reached out and took Doranbolt's arm, and he transported them back to the city, halfway across to where he'd come from in order to keep space between them and the dragon.

"What's this plan all about?" Cobra shouted over the roars of the beasts fighting in the sky over their heads. Yukino tilted her head, listening closely.

"You have a snake spirit, don't you?" Doranbolt asked, looking Yukino in the eye. "You summoned it in your duel with Kagura Mikazuchi, I watched you. Ophiuchus, I believe."

Yukino nodded, bewildered, but already fishing in her pockets and pulling out a golden key with a small black snake wound around it: the key that opened the gate of the thirteenth Zodiac Spirit, the Snake Charmer. Good, she knew what she was supposed to do.

"Mister Councilman--"

"Doranbolt."

"--Mister Doranbolt, I'll help in any way I can, but I'm not sure even Ophiuchus has enough power to stop one of those dragons."

Having seen the monstrosity with his own eyes, Doranbolt would contest that, but there were other reasons a plan like that wouldn't work. Outside of dragonslaying magic, dragons themselves seemed to repel any external magic. Luckily, the plan of assault was not to have Ophiuchus attempt combat directly.

"And Ophiuchus, does it have venom? Or any kind of toxin available?"

Cobra jerked up, wincing as his mangled arm swung slightly, having caught on to the plan. Yukino nodded, confused.

"Listen to me carefully. I need you to summon Ophiuchus, and have it create as much venom as it possibly can. Cobra is a poison dragon slayer, and he'll use it to heal and empower himself. Do you understand?"

Again, Yukino nodded, eyebrows raising up as she realized the strategy. "Please back up."

Doranbolt slid himself out from under Cobra, teleporting himself a good thirty meters away, watching closely. Cobra made no move to get out of the radius of Yukino's spell as she lifted the small golden key with the black snake inlaid around it into the air above her head, from which a large, dark magic seal erupted. Shadowy energy poured from the seal as the sky grew darker, an inky, cloudy blackness hovering over the city of Crocus and the stars fading into the fog.

_"Open, Gate of the Snake Charmer! Ophiuchus!"_

As he watched, the massive, monstrous black snake descended from the sky. Its body seemed to be made of metal, and its head was the size of a van while its body had to have been hundreds of feet long, coiled in the sky and casting its shadow over several city blocks. Doranbolt felt a wave of dread, tangible even past the chaos and panic of the current situation. Even if dragons repelled ordinary magic, a creature this immense and this powerful would surely even the odds of the fight.

_CRASH!_

The sound of a huge stone foot stomping down drew Doranbolt's attention behind him, and another titanic roar followed. The rock dragon had seen the summoning and was now approaching rapidly. Doranbolt caught its yellow-eyed gaze, knowing it recognized him.

"Ophiuchus!"

Turning his attention back to the snake spirit, Doranbolt watched as it opened its mouth, directing itself downward at Cobra. Like before, it seemed to understand what it needed to do without being told. Doranbolt tensed, but wasn't prepared for what came next. As he watched, wary of the rock dragon currently bearing down on them, an immense stream of venom, a sinister dark blue color, was sprayed from the creature's mouth, rushing downward and creating a venom cloud that expanded outward when it hit the street, rushing towards him at high speed. He drew his arm up over his face instinctively, ready to teleport out of the way, but before he could do so, the wave stopped. Only a few feet from him, it halted and fell, turning the street and buildings to dissolving fluid matter where it landed. When he inhaled for breath, Doranbolt felt his lungs stinging and his throat instantly dry out. Behind him, even the footfalls of the rock dragon had stopped, and Doranbolt knew it to be wary by the feeling of its mind. This wave of toxins was much stronger than anything its previous opponent had delivered, and Doranbolt felt a grand satisfaction knowing it was nothing compared to what the dragon would soon be facing itself. Indeed, the powerful aura was putting Future Rogue's, so distant up in the sky, to shame. Suddenly, the dragons didn't seem quite so fearsome.

The venom cloud, despite still being sprayed second after second by the snake spirit in the sky, began to recede, returning to its impact point, and the councilman understood what was happening. More toxic and powerful than even the celestial spirit itself, came the overwhelming feeling of a magic aura: Cobra's. At the center point of the impact site, the venom slayer was inhaling, sucking in the monstrous amounts of deadly fluid. Waves of roiling energy rolled off of him as his own power multiplied exponentially. All noise and fighting in the city had seemed to cease with the exception of what was happening before him, and the councilman reached out with his mind and found every single one he touched mesmerized. All were staring at the massive black snake hovering over the city and the massive amounts of power radiating from the site. 

The stream of corrosive venom finally stopped, allowing Cobra to inhale the last of it. Leaning forward, Doranbolt could tell that his mangled arm had long since healed. Peering closer, Doranbolt found a familiar halo around him, and scales covering his entire body, now visible under shredded clothing. Cobra's eyes were glowing the same sinister blue as the toxin he had just ingested. He recognized it as Dragon Force, the same state that Sting Eucliffe and Rogue Cheney had entered in their fight with Natsu Dragneel and Gajeel Redfox, but on another level entirely. The dragonslayer turned his head, catching his eyes.

_"Out of the way."_

A crash of noise shook him and he turned, seeing the rock dragon rearing up and spreading its wings. The rock dragon had apparently decided either to flee or to attempt to fight this opponent from the air. Realizing he was in the line of fire, Doranbolt teleported, grabbing Yukino along the way and getting her out of the way as well. A hundred yards behind Cobra should be a safe distance. Right?

Cobra leaned back, and the earth around him suddenly split, cracking open like eggshell, accompanied by the bizarre feeling of falling backwards as the ground underneath Doranbolt turned up at an angle. After sustaining a rather annoying bump on the back of his head, Doranbolt sat back up, watching as Cobra took his stance, aiming. The rock dragon was now in the air, and was rushing towards him. The perfect shot was lined up. The sound that followed was every bit as vicious and powerful as the dragon roars that Doranbolt had been hearing for the past hour and a half, so much so that it could hardly be called a simple magic attack anymore. It was more like a force of nature, or a nuclear weapon going off, watching the massive blast of venomous energy be fired out from the dragonslayer's mouth, blasting outward into the sky. It connected with and completely covered the rock dragon, which was visibly stopped in its tracks. The wave of toxin continued into the sky, running a hole straight through the clouds.

 _I'm sure glad he fired that thing into the sky,_ Doranbolt thought as he watched the entire dragon be dissolved before the attack was finished, chunks of wing and tail hitting the earth with crashing sounds before each was disintegrated completely. A blast like that, had it hit the city, would have left half of it wiped off the map and kept going to destroy the landscape for a few dozen more miles. Cobra had not just defeated the dragon, he had annihilated it. When the breath attack finally halted and dissipated, the remaining clouds were tinged with a glowing dark blue.

The aftermath wasn't quite as amazing as he had hoped, he realized, turning his attention back to Cobra. They were one dragon down, but Cobra was on his hands and knees, gasping for breath. Evidently that much magic power had been too much for his internal ethernano. Launching an attack with so much power had left him exhausted, a shadow of the health he'd been in when he'd arrived at Crocus. 

"What should we do now? There are still six more dragons left." came a voice beside him, and Doranbolt jerked, having not remembered that Yukino was still beside him. In contrast to Cobra, she looked perfectly fine, if a little worn. Evidently, she was not very drained from summoning Ophiuchus and setting it on the dragons. If anything, what fatique she was experiencing seemed to be left over from the repeated assaults on the Eclipse Gate.

Doranbolt tried to think. Looking around, much attention was still focused on the spectacle that had just happened. Even without reaching his mind out, he could feel the tangible alarm, anger, and panic inside the fresh memories of Future Rogue and the remaining dragons, and the jubilant joy that the other slayers were feeling, who had redoubled their efforts to fight in order to prevent their respective dragon opponents from following their wishes, and coming to this part of the city to destroy whatever it was that had slain the rock dragon.

Again, Doranbolt turned his attention to the sky, where things were not as good. He reached out his mind and felt the memory trees of Motherglare, the steel-scaled beast that Future Rogue was using as a steed, and Atlas Flame, the immense fire dragon that was sharing its power with Natsu. Natsu could not drain enough power from Atlas Flame with the two monsters fighting each other as fiercely as they were, not to mention the injuries Atlas Flame was sustaining on its own. But what was concerning was the feelings presenting themselves inside Atlas Flame's mind.

"He switched sides, but he didn't count on dying." croaked the voice of Cobra nearby. Doranbolt turned, realizing that he was listening in on the beast's mind as well. "He's uneasy. If one of us moves to attack him, he might just run for it instead of helping us out."

So they needed to be able to defeat the other dragons without making an enemy out of Atlas Flame again. Defeating the other dragons at all would be hard enough.... Ophiuchius was still floating above them, awaiting a command. Doranbolt's gaze panned across the sky, taking in the poison-tinged hole in the sky.

An idea came to him. It was a burst of details and potentials and strategy, all of it unclear gambling. But perhaps luck was on his side today and his plans would work out twice in a row. Doranbolt turned to his two present allies to explain.

"Cobra, I'm sorry, but I need you to continue fighting today. You've earned your freedom like I promised, but I'm not letting you leave until you've played your part to do as much as we can to stop the dragons. Yukino, I need you and Cobra to mount Ophiuchus and fly up into the sky. Separate Motherglare and Atlas Flame, and communicate the plan I'm about to tell you to Atlas Flame and Natsu while I get everyone out of the city. I'll get up there to you when it's safe to initiate this plan. Now listen closely..."

The two of them both nodded, the same ideas already being processed by Cobra.

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Doranbolt flashed up onto the mountainside overlooking Crocus, carrying with him Lahar, Jellal Fernandes, and Ultear Milkovich, who had just completed their work. Behind him was every remaining citizen from Crocus that hadn't been evacuated, uncomfortably cramped into the large clearing along with all of the mages that had been fighting. The six dragons remaining were now alone in the city. The dragonslayers, sans Cobra and Natsu, were also here at the forefront of the group, being healed by a combined effort from Wendy Marvell, Chelia Blendy, and Rufus Lore, who was using his Memory Make magic to add a third party to the healing process. After their work healing was done, Doranbolt had ordered them to begin stacking a multitude of support charms onto the slayers, and only then to begin healing the other mages. Wendy and Laxus in particular were returning from playing their part in his plan, and so were doubly worn out. 

"Are you sure this will work?" Came the worried voice of Lahar next to him.

"No." He wasn't sure at all, but he had a very good feeling. 

Turning his eyes to the sky for the third time that night, Doranbolt watched a minute black line fly across the sky, circling the city, trailed by large clouds of red and blue so far up above the heights reached by the dragons who remained just above the city. Up there, Ophiuchus was hard at work with Cobra altering the very atmosphere. Although dragons repelled most magic, there was nothing saying that they were also immune to natural disasters. That, however, was a gamble Doranbolt wasn't willing to take. Even if natural occurrences weren't covered by the protective ancient magic that imbued dragons' hides, there was no guarantee they wouldn't still simply shrug off what was about to happen, given that it was still coming from a magical source in Ophiuchus' venom. That was why Cobra was up there with them, filtering the venom the black snake was exhaling to add the dragonslaying exponent. 

"Look."

Everyone present peered up into the sky with him. A dark blue circle had been created overlooking the city limits, hovering in the sky like some dark angel's halo. The dark blue tinge crept from the surrounding circle and flowed inward, until the clouds overlooking Crocus had been entirely consumed by venom. It was time. Shocks of blue lightning sparked across the sky as the atmosphere began to roil. 

Doranbolt teleported, the scenery changing and nearly causing him to fall to his death. A wind was suddenly roaring around him as he latched on to the hide of the great black serpent, finding Cobra and Yukino next to him. It was freezing up here and the air was dangerously thin. Despite the conditions, Cobra and Yukino were unaffected thanks to the enchantments that had been cast on them beforehand by Lahar. Doranbolt, however, was certainly feeling the effects of being ten thousand feet in the air. 

_"IT'S TIME!!"_ he shouted, and the two of them nodded. Ensured that the plan was being put into action, Doranbolt teleported again and ended up safe on the much less hostile ground of Crocus, at the heart of the city near the Eclipse Gate. It took him a second of catching his breath, body shaken by the sudden and extreme shifts in his surroundings. However, he still turned skyward and saw Ophiuchus much closer to the earth, next to Atlas Flame as they gave the signal. Then, they flew off to escape the city borders for the safe area.

Heat rolled over him in intense waves as the fire dragon soared to the earth, crashing to the ground to land in a designated safe zone. Walls of purple runes, signals of Lahar's work, rose up around the dragon to create a barrier, supported by an atmospheric charm cast by Jellal and a time-stop circle placed by Ultear Milkovich. The purpose of the barrier was not to keep the dragon inside it, but the keep the assault from getting inside it. Doranbolt fled under the protective awning provided by the Eclipse Gate. Just how strong it and its ancient black magic were was soon to be put to the test. Thunder rolled overhead and was followed by the tell-tale _drip-drip-drip_ and then _ssshhh_ of rain falling to the ground. This, however, was no ordinary rain.

**It was acid rain.**

The combined might of Ophiuchus' death plague toxins and Cobra's own powerful venoms fell to the earth as a dragon-slaying storm, quickly picking up speed and coating the scene in front of him a dark blue, lit only by Atlas Flame's protected body inside the barrier. The rain picked up, a dark flood washing over the street as the toxic torrent fell to the earth and turning cement, gravel, and cobblestone pavement alike to a viscous sludge. Doranbolt stepped back onto the Eclipse Gate's pedestal, his shoe singed when some of the rain caught it, and was overcome by the cloying smell of death. Above him, the golden gate seemed to be holding.

As the storm picked up and the black rain covered the city, suddenly screeches and roars of pain erupted from five places all over Crocus, together with the rolls of thunder creating a deafening cacophony of noise. The plan had worked, and the nearest dragon became visible in the distance as an already-decaying building was crashed to the ground. The dust quickly cleared to reveal one of the dragons, the dark black one Gajeel Redfox had been facing, thrashing around as the rain sluiced over its body, steam rising up from its dissolving hide. The plan had worked, and the dragons that had menaced the city were being overcome by dragonslaying magic mixed with an act of nature. 

This was not going to kill them outright. There was not enough cloud cover, and they had not been able to craft a truly enormous storm that would last for more than a minute or two. The dragons would surely survive....but heavy damage was being dealt. Judging by the writhing creature he saw before him, the wounds would be severe enough that the seven dragonslayers (or six, if Cobra decided to leave the city now that his part was played) would be able to swoop in and deliver a renewed assault on the now injured and weakened dragons. The situation had reversed itself, with seven mighty and powerful beasts preying on weakened mages now being the ones on the receiving end of pain. Doranbolt felt rather proud of himself for coming up with the idea.

The rain began to slow, and within another few seconds, stopped entirely. Doranbolt waited until the roars of pain turned to hisses and groans, and the black flood that had nearly reached him in the gate had passed and left in its wake ditches where roads used to be. Around him, the powerful corrosive storm had reduced many of Crocus' proud buildings to so much rubble and goo. Perhaps if Ultear felt like restoring the city, she too could earn a measure of freedom. 

Once he felt that it was safe to begin the assault, Doranbolt teleported up onto the safety clearing on the mountainside, before returning to the Gate with the six dragonslayers remaining in tow.

_"Pick a target and attack with full force!" he yelled._

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It was the day after the dragon assault. 

Things had gone remarkably well. Atlas Flame had fled, seeking a peaceful volcano or mountain to roost in with the promise that he had no intention of attacking again after seeing the might of humanity. The corpses of the other five slain dragons and the pieces of the sixth had been collected and confiscated, to be locked away in some dark chamber in the Magic Council's vast secret facilities where only he would know of their existences. The city, destroyed first by the dragons' rampage and then by the decimation brought by the death rain, had been restored in short order by an impressive display from Ultear Milkovich. Not to be outdone, Doranbolt had worked his own magic, erasing the memories of the entire night's events from the minds of everyone who had not participated in fighting off the dragons. Cobra had earned his freedom and stalked off, with a foreboding warning of Hell opening up soon. Future Rogue had been taken into custody to replace him in the empty cell.

Before him stood Jellal Fernandes, Meredy Milkovich, and Ultear Milkovich, awaiting Doranbolt's judgement. None of them seemed comfortable, as they were loose criminals, particularly Jellal, who had seemed rather unnerved with how easily Doranbolt had removed all traces of the night's events from the public's memories.

"You three are technically still an illegal guild." he warned, turning to them. "I won't forget the help you've given us tonight, but I won't be forgetting the severity of your crimes either. The slave tower you ran", he stared at Jellal, "and the many cities you two have destroyed" he gazed at Meredy and Ultear, "won't be undone by helping out in one disaster. I'm prepared to allow you to walk free, so long as you keep yourselves hidden. I will assign Cobra to watch you three, and I will be watching him as well. Understand?"

The three nodded. 

"And 'hidden' doesn't mean casting meteors at publicly televised events. I will personally bring you three back to prison and make sure you never escape if I catch any hint of wrongdoing. Now get out of my sight."


End file.
